Thursday, September 11, 2008

Good morning, 24-hour puzzle people. Get ready for something a bit different today. And I hope you still have those scissors from this puzzle. Here goes...

Are you familiar with Venn Diagrams? If not, I suggest you get up to speed posthaste if you want to solve today's rompicapo. The Venn Diagram concept is really quite simple: it's a diagram composed of enclosed shapes (usually circles) each of which represents a different group. The circles and other objects are arranged such that all objects that fall within a given circle belong to the corresponding group. Circles may overlap, as long as anything falling within the overlapping portion of those circles fits both groups.

So, for example, if we have three circles labeled "Professional Athletes," "French Things," and "Starts With 'P'", the Venn Diagram might look like this:

Let's take a look at this, starting with the four objects within the circle labelled "French Things". 'Crêpes' falls only into the "French Things" circle, and thus its only requirement is that it be French. It is. 'Paris' falls into both the "French Things" circle and the "Starts With P" circle, and sure enough it is both French and starts with P. Likewise, 'Zinedine Zidane' is both French and a professional athlete, and thus falls into the overlapping portion of those two circles. And finally 'Tony Parker' is French, a professional athlete, and starts with P, fitting the theme of all three circles in which he falls. All the other circles are similarly filled out.

Why am I telling you this? Well, some of you may have noticed we at SoSG have a seemingly disproportionate amount of affection for certain things. Your task today is to construct a Venn Diagram based on five of those things we love from its pieces. First, here are the pieces:

(click images to enlarge)

So let me explain: There are five circles, each representing one of SoSG's great loves. Below that are 16 thumbnail photos, randomly arranged, which represent objects that fit one or more of those five circles. Your task is to fill out the answer panel on the right by both figuring out what the theme of each of the 5 circles is, and by matching each of the 16 spaces that are scattered among the circles with the appropriate thumbnail photo (A through P).

I've started you off with the first match: thumbnail 'A' goes in space '1'. The rest is all you. Good luck!

Puzzle Rules: Comment freely, but if you have the solution, please don't give away the answer to everyone in the comments section. Instead, do the following:

Email us your completed Answer Panel, with all 16 spaces matched to the correct thumbnail, and with the five circle themes correctly identified (please include your screen name somewhere in the email), and

Post a comment simply saying you have emailed your solution attempt so I know to check our email.

FYI, there are 2 correct answers, depending on if you go clockwise or counter-clockwise around the diagram. Either is accepted. Deadline is midnight PT, and the solution will be posted sometime tomorrow. Thanks, and good luck to all!

Bonus! In addition to the prizes we're awarding to the Puzzle Championship Series, we're also giving away a participation prize for this individual puzzle. It works just like our previous puzzles: all solution attempts submitted via email before the deadline - correct or not - will be entered into a pool*. From this pool, one name will be randomly selected in a transparent lottery. As long as the person drawn is willing to send us his/her mailing address, they will receive a wonderful Dodger-related prize item.

*each name is entered only once, regardless of the number of solution attempts submitted

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Hint #1 (9:25am PT): It's not necessary to know the names of the people in thumbnails B, F, or M. But if you know any of their phone numbers, email us and you will be awarded 1,000 bonus puzzle points.

Update (1:27pm PT): So far only nine people have submitted attempts and eight have thus been entered into the participation lottery (Quad, Steve, Neeebs, Erin, Fanerman, Karina, Berko, and Loney Fan...Sax/Karros isn't eligible)!

The trouble with this one, for me, is that [I'm sure] you need to be up on the usual amount of pop culture. I know next to nothing (no pop music, for starters), and with only images, not words, I can't even look them up in Wikipedia. Don't expect an answer from me this time.

Even though I did have a couple classes with Mylinda in high school, I don't think she knows who I am. On the other hand, my 10 year high school reunion is coming up next year, so it's possible I could see her again and say hi. =)

Sax your solution is correct! But to address your other question - Juan Pierre is neither French nor in the "French Things" circle. He's only in the "Starts with P" and "Professional Athletes" circles (granted, the latter is questionable too)

I've got the general principle, but even when I (really) stretch a point to consider one of those items to supposedly fit all categories (circles), I'm really having trouble finding a 7th [something] and also finding an item that belongs to only one [other something]. So maybe I have my somethings (categories, circles) wrong, though those at least seem pretty clear. Or there must be some "hidden" background connections I don't know about - due to my lack of pop culture knowledge, maybe. Too bad, I like this sort of thing.

Well, I could make it a lot clearer by telling you which "somethings" I'm talking about - naming my categories (circles). But that might give a bit away - not that I have much to give away. If you say it's OK, I'll be more explicit.

Oh well, I sent in an answer anyway, though one bit feels wrong (missing a theme that looks like it should be in there), but since I have no idea who the picture is, I suppose it might be right since it's the only missing item. Either that, or almost everything is wrong.

Thanks, Karina. Yeah, I had "it" down as a woman, too, but mostly just by a process of elimination: it had to be for everything else to work out, not because I can tell it looks like one (could be a man in a quasi-religious outfit). And a movie character (though I have no idea which one). And something else too - something which makes not much sense to me. It looks like two of those line up with yours, so maybe it's right after all. The third one thing sure is a mystery to me, though, a real p..... oops,shouldn't say.